Members of the civil society on Friday accused the Presidency and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of planning to frustrate the merger of three major opposition parties into the All Progressives Congress (APC).
At a press briefing in Lagos, the activists spoke on their findings of an investigation into the APC crisis which exposed the fraudulent manner with which applications for two proxy APCs were filed and received by the INEC.
Those present at the gathering were a former National Secretary of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Comrade Salihu Mohammed Lukman; a former President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Barrister Abdul Aminu Mahmud; Alhaji Mahmud Abdullahi; and a former Chairman of Gwale LGA in Kano State, Alhaji Kawu Idris.
They were part of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) coalition which fought for the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan as acting President in 2010.
Lukman who spoke on behalf of the group said, “I am sure that there are two questions that will be virtually in the minds of everybody. First, who are we? Two, what is the subject that we want to address? In terms of who we are, we are not here as representatives of any platform. We are here first and foremost as Nigerians, but as Nigerians who have been involved in one way or the other with the politics of this country.
“And we have, in our own little way in the last few months, tried to see how we can intervene in order to either give advice or engage the political process.
“Of course, we are not doing this as an accidental engagement. The last time, I think two months ago, I made a public presentation of my book. Since then, we have been relating with the political parties that are currently negotiating the merger that will hopefully produce the All Progressives Congress.
“And when in the last few days the controversy surrounding the name came up, we on our own decided to investigate the matter because we believe that Nigerians deserve better and that the negotiation currently being undertaken by all the parties in the merger process will certainly give Nigerians some ray of hope. And if something as basic as the name is throwing everybody into confusion, we felt the need for informed investigation.
“Why we thought we need a press conference is because of some of the findings. We don’t have a text, but are going to ensure that you have these ones. These are the evidence.
“We felt that there are pieces of information we have stumbled upon which should be cross-checked further. And we feel that the best people to cross-check it will be the Nigerian press. These are pieces of information that border on the management of the process by the INEC. They are pieces of information on the issue which I can call fraud by some people claiming to have filed in registration.
“But my preliminary remark is basically to say that it will be correct to argue that as today there is no party registered with the acronym called APC. At best, there may be some applications before the INEC. So that application cannot have assumed the conclusive position of being registered. Two, there are indications, by the time we give you the documents and we ask you to further cross-check, that the whole thing borders on some people who are desperate to ensure that they fast-track a pre-emptive move so that the registration of the merged party is blocked.
“The information we have, you will have copies of it, you will find that there are about three or four applications with the INEC right now with the acronym APC. And from our investigation, all the applications were filed within five days. And you will see them. Interestingly, all the applications were filed by legal representatives. And one of our findings indicated that when the APGA wanted to get itself registered, their first action was to apply to the INEC through a consultant . And we were informed, this we ask you to go and cross-check with the leadership of the APGA, INEC andAPGA that it is the substantive leadership of the APGA that should file the registration. If that is true, it means that there is a precedent in the INEC that it is the substantive leadership of a party that should apply for registration.
“But in the case of the African Peoples Congress, the application is by a legal representative and the letter is here. You will see it there. In the case of the other one, the All Patriotic Citizens, it is also by a legal representative. So if there was a precedent in the case of the APGA, at what time did the INEC change the procedure.
“I think these are issues the public should be asking, and we think that the best answer will come from the INEC.
“One substantive issue is the fact that we, through our contact in the INEC, were able to access what is supposed to be the ideal application form. Usually from our own understanding and from the technicality if you look at it, you will see the way it is. You cannot have a computer print on it; you can only write. But from what we were able to access and the application that is submitted by the African Peoples Congress, it is computer generated apart from the signatures.
“Our concern is to assist the nation to get the truth out of all these things. There is one thing before I hand you over to the technical person.”
Lukman said the team had discovered that there are still PDP card-carrying members in the INEC.
He said: “It is clear that the management of the process is problematic and it is problematic probably because when Jega assumed the leadership of the INEC two to three years ago, there was some public expectation that his management of the process will sanitize the INEC to ensure that there are credible and honest Nigerians who are managing the INEC.
“Unfortunately, as at today, there are still many card-carrying members of the PDP within the INEC. And clearly one of the officials of the INEC who is in charge of the capacity of the INEC to manage something as basic as party registration is a lady.
“We were told she is in charge of party registration process in the INEC and if on something as basic as this the INEC is getting it wrong, we doubt the capacity of the INEC to lead the nation to have a free and fair election in 2015.
“And the issue of sanitizing the INEC is what this will lead to. We believe that the PDP and Presidency are behind it through some of these directors. And part of the game plan, from our investigation and we invite you to go and check, is also struggling for the position of secretaryship of the INEC.
“There are people who have positioned themselves in the Presidency so that they eventually get appointed as the substantive secretary of the INEC when the tenure of the current secretary expires.
“Of course, there is the issue of Jega being a northerner and the secretary cannot be a northerner. I don’t want to go into that. I don’t give a damn where anybody comes from, but what I give a damn about is that we cannot use our privileged position to scuttle the wishes of Nigerians.”
On his part, Barrister Abdul Aminu Mahmud said the civil society leaders have discovered smoker’s cough in the application of proxy APCs, especially the African Peoples Congress.
He said: “We have been in this process for the last five days. Luckily for us, we stumbled on what I call the smoker’s cough. There are two documents here. Both are titled Form PA 1. This is the one submitted to the INEC by the political association- African Peoples Congress (APC).
“What is the particular difference? The particular difference is that if the Electoral Act prescribes forms which those seeking registration of parties should fill out and submit, we expect that the so-called APC would have submitted this authentic form, not this one. If you look at the first page, this is a document submitted by the proxy APC .If you look at the section for National Executive Committee, it is broken into blocks, listed one, two , three. The original document has no block. It is just open space.
“In order to take the name away from the political association that has declared its interest ,somebody rushed the application and processed it for the APC.
“When the law prescribes certain procedures, these procedures must be followed intoto. If you are buying a jamb form to seek admission into university, you pay money and get the JAMB form. You don’t go to a computer centre to reproduce the security of JAMB form, fill it and send to JAMB.
“I am simply worried as a lawyer because we are dealing with a public institution here (INEC), and it is an institution created by an Act of the parliament. I have studied this document. It is very clear to me that this document was produced in one place in the office of the INEC.”
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